Try not to die
by Arasinyah
Summary: Death in real world -›Waking up in Vampire Diaries world as Elena Gilbert, further research required. (SI-OC)
1. Chapter 1

**Elena's diary**

 **Events so far:**

-Bus accident in my world (to be referred to as W1 henceforth), bridge collapsed, bus into water

-Woke up spluttering water to unknowns acting as 'family'

-Discovered self in Vampire Diaries world (to be referred to as WVD henceforth) as Elena Gilbert

-Attended funeral pretending to have memory issues due to accident

-Read Elena's diaries to serve as a point of reference

 **Known facts (w.r.t WVD)**

-Elena Gilbert is doppelganger

-Doppelgangers attract attention of supernatural world (more research required)

-Best friend, Bonnie=Witch, extends to family

-Vampires to appear soon eg:Stefan, Damon, Lexa(?), Elijah, Klaus

-Werewolves to appear at some point eg:The guy who was engaged to Lady Gaga, Tyler, Blondie, Guy who played Oliver Queen

-Katherine=Drama/compromised mental states of the friendly neighbourhood vampires

Note: Is 2009 as opposed to 2018

 **To do:**

-Look into plastic surgery as way of not being doppelganger?

-Dye hair, get piercings etc to maintain physical differences from Katherine, pass off as 'coping' mechanisms

-Mystic Falls=Danger, so look into early graduation possibilities, colleges out of town (maybe out of country)

-See if any overlap from W1 to WVD (check if Mum, Dad, self exist)

-Check to see if other bus accident victims have taken up places as characters

-DON'T DIE

-Refrain from dating vampires

-Refrain from dating werewolves

-Possibly refrain from dating whatsoever

-Look for the Gilbert devices for potential supernatural help

-Look into emancipation

-Find shooting range and practice blowing heads off

-NO DYING ALLOWED

-Find out if Elena has egg white intolerance

-If no, eat macarons and lemon meringue pie


	2. Chapter 2

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Bonnie looked at her best friend, curious. She'd spent the first half of summer vacation shuffling between her and Caroline's houses while Jenna tried to get the situation under control, and the second half spent alternating between driving out to Richmond for weird things like piercings and baked goods, and reading a ton of legal books from the library. Bonnie had no idea what was going on with her friend, only that she seemed to have gone through a complete personality switch with the accident.

Between the ton of piercings littering her ear, the one in her nose and eyebrow, the grey-blue short hair clipped back with a pencil, the Jurassic park tee shirt and grey parka she was wearing, Elena was already getting looks from people as they walked down the hallways and once again, Bonnie wondered what the hell was up with her.

So she asked.

"What's with the punk look? I thought that was just for the summer vacation but-"

"Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-accident."

"What?"

The smile on Elena's face dropped but she shook it off. "You'll get it in a few months. But yeah, trauma from the accident, fear of death manifesting in false bravado, YOLO and carpe diem etc. Life's too short to spend it being a conformist. No worries,though, it's all therapist approved." She held two thumbs up and winked before getting the books out of her locker. "Now the plastic surgery bit is something she does _not_ approve of."

"Plastic surgery?!" Bonnie couldn't help but yell and even as heads turned to see what the once cheerleaders who were still popular (if Bonnie said so herself) were saying, Elena just bobbed her head before slamming the locker door shut.

"I thought I could get a nose job or something, make it perkier," She pressed her nose up and raised her eyebrows. "What do you think?"

"I think this little piggy needs to get to class."

Elena snorted like a pig, wiggled her nose and walked off as Bonnie followed with a laugh. Yes, she might have had a complete personality switch but at least it was a fun personality switch.

* * *

"Yo man, what's up with your sister lately, she hasn't been returning any of my calls," Elena overheard and tiptoed to where Tyler was talking to Matt.

"Leave her alone Tyler, she's been doing really well, no drugs, no boys all summer. I don't want you messing things up for us."

"Come on Matty, don't tell you're not worried, it's like she had a complete personality switch."

"Personality switch like _me_?" Elena said and had the utter joy of seeing the two burly boys jump into the air.

"Elena, Jesus, don't do that!" Matt said clutching at his man boob while Tyler glowered.

"At least your switch was fun, you went from being a pain in the ass to weirdass." Tyler sneered. "Vicki went from fun to librarian."

"Tell me more!" She looked around wondering if Vicki was anywhere nearby, "Like where I might find her and congratulate her on getting out of the ridiculous thing Tyler, Jeremy and she have going on, that toxic vicious cycle of pain and barely disguised self-harm."

Matt was the first to recover from Elena's tirade, holding Tyler back and pointing to the women's washroom instead. "She went in there."

"Danke!" Elena chirped and flounced off to the washroom where no one was there but Vicki, Vicki who certainly looked different from the way she was in WVD, neat ponytail, glasses and oxford button down shirt. She would not have looked out of place in a workplace, casual friday or not and something about it resonated with Elena, so she just blurted out the next words, "PtY 4729, Smith Creek Bridge."

Vicki's eyes widened, "No fucking way, _you too_?!"

"I was sitting two seats behind the driver, on the aisle side!" Elena said, excited.

"With the red ribbon in your hair!" Vicki grabbed her hand and the two began jumping excitedly, "I was three seats back at the window."

"The one with the Apple Watch!"

"Yes, oh my god." They screeched some more and Elena was vibrating with excitement.

"I'm so glad someone else is here too, I thought I was going to lose my mind with the vampires and the werewolves and what not."

Vicki's smile dropped, "Wait, what?"

And Elena realised that she must not have known. "Umm, we're in the Vampire Diaries world."

"You mean the one with the weird love triangle that CW hyped?" Vicki looked as if she might cry, "I'm in a Supernatural teen drama?! I'm thirty five, I don't have the patience for this shit."

"If it makes you feel any better you're not really a main character."

She sagged in relief, "Oh thank the heavens." She frowned and looked at Elena, "Although you do look familiar."

"I _am_ a main character."

Vicki's face crumpled into sympathy and she patted Elena's cheek. "Aww shit, sorry babe."

"Yeah, don't be sorry just yet because you aren't a main character but you are a recurring one and...you do get turned into a vampire before dying horribly and then coming back as a ghost and shit like that."

Vicki just stared for a good minute. She didn't blink even when a couple of girls came into the washroom, didn't react at all. When a few minutes had passed and the girls were in the stalls, she finally shouted, "Motherfucking son of a bitch!"

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	3. Chapter 3

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"So," Vicki asked Elena as they sat on the roof, quietly eating sandwiches. To say that everyone had been surprised to see the two of them together was an understatement, to say that the two could not give a fuck was even more of one. "What's your real name?"

"In W1, I'm Matilda O'Grady."

"W1?"

"Our world, world number 1"

Vicki raised her eyebrows but played along, "Ah, of course."

"And you?"

"Victoria Wilson."

"You're kidding? You were Vicki in our world too?"

"Tori actually. I thought I had some memory loss stuff going on and that Matt was some long lost nephew before I saw the mirror."

"Wow, I mean at least _I_ knew where I was, even if it was a fictional world."

"Fictional world of vampires and werewolves," Vicki said softly before turning to Elena, "So, what's the game plan?"

"Game plan?"

"Come off it," Vicki rolled her eyes, "All summer long you've known the world you were in and what was going to happen to you, you're telling me there no game plan?"

"The thing is, we should have different game plans."

"Oh?"

"Here's the deal, _you_ had a drug addiction that was the main reason you got involved in all this to begin with, junkies are easier to 'disappear' without questions being asked, they're easier to compel etc. But you're not a junkie right now so things are different. Original Vicki was fucking Jeremy Gilbert, aka my brother, and Tyler Lockwood, aka a werewolf and mayor's son. They're both high profile enough that the involvement with them would get you screwed over, especially since Jeremy's a pill pusher. You obviously don't want to get involved in the supernatural shit, your brother Matt doesn't either, so ideally just keep your nose down, work hard enough to get enough money to get out of town and you should be cool."

"And you?"

Elena snorted, "This thing right here," She waved a hand over her face, "It's going to fuck me over. See, this face and body recurs in bloodlines as a doppelganger which is a supernatural thing to begin with, and is also the face of women who have many immortal men fighting over it, there's Amara from the BC ages whose lover is the cause of all this crap, Tatia from Viking era with Klaus and Elijah panting over her, Katherine with Klaus and Elijah again and later on Stefan and Damon and even a werewolf boy panting over her and then finally Elena, the current one who will also have all these people panting over her, eventually."

"The face that launched a thousand ships, huh?"

"Yep, ships like Delena, Stelena, Steferine,Datherine, Kalijah, Katlaus and on and on. So many ships launched." Elena trailed off before clearing her throat, "Plus the Gilbert family is supposed to be involved in supernatural shit too. I'm stuck until I get older and get the plastic surgery I want."

"Well, I guess I'll have to look into getting more money. Finances are a mess in the Donovan household and they seem to have no guardians."

"I think their...or I guess, _your_ mom ran off or something."

"Of course she did." Vicki sighed, "Well, waitressing isn't going to cut it. I'm going to see if I can sell essays online, there's bound to be a market for that and I can put my degrees to use there at least. Eight fucking years of education down the drain."

"Six for me but I hated my job anyway, I'm kind of looking at this whole thing as a way of trying out a different profession."

"What did you do?"

"I was an actuary. Worked in an insurance company. You?"

"Psychiatrist. I loved my job. I miss it." Vicki sighed. "I miss my Macbook Pro."

"I miss people understanding the pop culture references I make." Elena brightened,"On the other hand, being young again is nice. Last night I fell asleep at my desk and woke up _without_ a painful crick in my neck, so there is that."

"And I don't have student loans to pay off yet." Vicki nodded, "So anything else about Vampire Diaries I need to know?"

"I guess...we should probably get used to people dying. It happens a lot especially now that the vamps are in town. I've never actually seen a dead person or 'animal attacks' as they're going to pass them off."

"I saw those in my residency, I'm fine with it."Vicki shrugged before looking at her watch and sighing. "Bell's going to ring soon, we need to get to class."

"You're working at the Grill tonight, right? I vaguely remember Elena being dragged there in the first episode." Elena frowned trying to remember. It had been a while since she'd seen the show. "Or maybe it was some bonfire party? I don't remember."

"Eh, relax. We'll exchange numbers and keep up that way instead. I need to know more about these vampires anyway, if they sparkle or anything like that." Vicki sighed. "Of all the worlds to fall into."

"It could be worse."

"How?"

"Well...we might have fallen into the fictional world of Hannibal instead."

The two shared a look before shuddering.

"Blessed be. I'll catch you later."

* * *

"Hello, my lovely bitches," Elena chirped happily. It wasn't as bad a day as it could have been, Vicki ignoring both Jeremy and Tyler had meant no douchebag moments from either _and_ she found out that Vicki was another survivor of PtY 4729 and in the process of that happiness, she hadn't had to interact with Stefan which was great. Delaying the inevitable collision with the supernatural was always going to make her happy.

Of course that delay wasn't much of one, given that Stefan was at the table with Bonnie and Caroline.

"-And new boy." She continued, the smile on her face turning fake. "So what are talking about? Has anyone seen Vicki?"

"Ugh, that junkie, again?" Caroline rolled her eyes derisively and Elena couldn't have that.

"Oye, no talking about my soulmate like that."

"What is up with you guys anyway, people are saying you got into it in a washroom before taking your fight elsewhere."

"Wait, what?" High school, as Elena was beginning to remember, was weird as hell. "No, I just heard Matt and Tyler say she was going through some changes and as you guys might have noticed, I myself am _also_ going through changes, so I thought we would talk about these changes."

"Anyway, enough of Vicki Donovan, what are you wearing?" Caroline fussed.

"My Gi, you mean? I just finished my karate class and didn't have time to change, we have a uniform. I've told you guys about that."

"You're taking karate?" Stefan asked. Oddly enough, he was the first person to ask her that. Everyone else assumed it was some weird way of mourning.

"Yes, it was to learn self-defence but to be honest I am mainly learning to be humble. You have not experienced true humiliation until a twelve year old yells at you for your incorrect stance."

"Twelve year old?" Bonnie asked.

"There's no beginner's class for adults, only one for kids. But I wanted to learn so I enrolled in it anyway and he's the class leader and teacher's assistant."

"That really _is_ pathetic." Bonnie said and Elena nodded.

"Especially because it's a step up from summer when he would make me kneel outside the classroom with my arms over my head as punishment for questioning his authority. I am _finally_ starting to grow on him."

They all stared at her, incredulous, before Caroline took over the conversation again.

"So, Stefan, if you're new in town you don't know about the party at the Falls."

"It's a back to school thing," Bonnie explained and Elena cocked out of the conversation, clocking Vicki from the corner of her eye. She was clearing a table and Jeremy was following her like a tail.

Again.

The boy was really kind of pathetic.

"-Elena!" Caroline yelled and she jerked out of her thoughts.

"What?"

"We've been trying to get your attention for ages, what is wrong with you today?!"

Stefan spoke calmly, stopping Caroline's tirade. "I was wondering if you would be going to the party as well."

"Let me check," Elena said and waved at Vicki who rolled her eyes but came toward them, Jeremy still trailing after her. "Hey Vick, you want to go to the party at the falls with us?"

Vicki took a deep breath and it was the only inkling Elena had that she was really incredibly angry, "If I say no, what would you do?"

"...Be sad for a bit I guess."

"But you wouldn't chase me all over town, trying to convince me otherwise? Stalking me?"

"I'm...pretty sure that's illegal. And wrong." Elena said tentatively.

Vicki turned to Jeremy with a big grin that looked completely and utterly fake, "And that is why I will not be going to the party with _you_. Because you, unlike your lovely sister here, don't understand the meaning of the word NO!" She whirled to Elena, braid whipping about and slapping her neck with the force of her movement and Elena winced. "Pick me up at seven." She said and stomped off leaving Elena to turn to the table proudly.

"It's going to be a fun party."

* * *

Elena was different from Katherine. Stefan had expected that, had spent most of summer watching her to make sure of that, so struck was he by their resemblance. That resemblance was not as strong now as it was the night of the accident when he had saved her, now that the long dark hair had been replaced by the short colourful one.

But the differences were just...so stark as to make him feel more inhuman than he had ever felt. Katherine was remarkable and fun in a way that decidedly adult. Elena was so very young as to make him feel his age, his _centuries_ worthof age. He felt out of place as he tried to keep up with her language, her childish flirtations, her blunt talk.

But...he still wanted to get to know her.

And what better way to get to know her than to listen to what she had to say about him to her friends.

" _-he's totally into you and he has that romance novel stare."_ Her best friend Bonnie said and Stefan felt his heart kick up its beat. It would make everything much easier if her friends approved.

" _Romance novel heroes often epitomise male chauvinism and the relationships in those novels tend to be emotionally abusive, involving copious amounts of coercion."_ Vicki, the new addition to her group, said, dashing any hopes Stefan had.

" _What she said, plus I've gone off blonds."_ Elena agreed.

" _Really?"_

" _Yes, now on it's all about brunettes with freckles and a too wide grin that shows off all their teeth."_

" _Really? Any more specifications?"_ Bonnie asked, clearly not expecting or wanting an answer.

" _He should be prone to not wearing shirts and be a narcoleptic and have tattoos and wear an orange cowboy hat and a red bead necklace-"_

" _That's an anime character isn't it?"_ Vicki said wryly and Stefan was shocked by the amount of relief he was such a real description that for a moment he wondered if she had some lover hidden away from her friends.

But it also served to make him aware of their differences, age and otherwise.

" _Yes, but I_ _ **love him**_ _. Recent events lead me to believe fiction is not far from reality, so I_ _ **will**_ _find my own Fire Fist Ace somewhere in the world and when I do, I am going to marry the fuck out of him."_

" _Where is Stefan any-_ "

"You made it!" Caroline's voice jerked him out his little trance state.

"Yeah, I see Elena made it too," Stefan said pointing her out near the fire from where he had heard the sounds. He finally looked at her and saw that she was huddled near the fire with her parka hood up, leaning against Vicki. Before Caroline could say anything his feet started moving towards her like a magnet was pulling him there.

"Hey look, it's new boy!" Elena said and Stefan couldn't help the smile on his face. Vicki, standing at her side, looked him over and he felt flayed open. He had clearly been judged and found lacking.

Bonnie on the other hand, jerked away from where she had been holding Elena's hand and Stefan remembered that despite everything, despite clearly approving of him, she was still a witch.

"That was weird."

"What was?"

"I saw you...sitting at this tiny desk, crunching numbers into a program and this business card and...I couldn't see the name but it said actuary and-"

"No! That can't be my future!" Elena cried out and threw her arms around Vicki. 'Not again!' Stefan heard her whisper into the girl's shoulder as Vicki shot a thumbs up at Bonnie who cackled. It was clearly a prank they had planned and Elena had fallen for it. The laughter Bonnie couldn't control made it obvious though and Elena looked at them both, aghast. "You guys are evil!"

"You shouldn't have been late picking me up." Vicki complained and Elena rolled her eyes.

"You only have to deal with Jeremy at school and at work, I _live_ with the guy, have you no sympathy?"

"Don't worry about Jeremy, he's harmless." Bonnie said only to be faced with two stony glares.

"Just because he doesn't _mean_ me any harm, doesn't make him harmless."

"She's been very clear about the fact that she has no interest in him or Tyler and both are still creeping around, Tyler has too much pride to hang over her like a puppy but his temper is one to watch out for and once he gets riled up and Jeremy gets involved trying to 'save' her, he's going to cause some serious damage."

"I'm not going to wait until it gets to the point of outright physical harassment to act. I've backed up their 'harmless' texts in case I need them to file a restraining order and believe me, I have a solid case."

"Yeah, stalking isn't sexy." Elena said and Stefan felt the urge to look away. What he had been doing in the summer was...stalking her. She just didn't know it.

"We-"

A scream from the woods interrupted Stefan and even as he rushed along with the others to where it had come from, he felt relieved, he had no idea what he was going to say in response to that, maybe out himself in penance.

"Shit, it's Jeremy!" Someone said and for all that Elena and her friends were unhappy with his behaviour, they still rushed to his side, pushing people away and Stefan followed, hoping to help in whatever way he could. The sight of blood on his neck, in a way that made it obvious it was a vampire attack shocked him to his very core and as they all gathered around the boy Stefan turned back, keeping a distance before the blood overwhelmed him.

His ears however stayed trained on Elena and he listened carefully as he tried to get his heart under control.

" _Don't move him, if it's a head or spinal injury it could make it worse, someone call the ambulance!"_ Vicki said and everyone listened. From where Stefan was standing he could see Elena take a handkerchief from her pocket and hand it to her and she used it to maintain a steady pressure on the boy's neck, her hand stable and strong. " _It's not clotting,"_

It didn't take long before the ambulance arrived and while Stefan wanted to take off and go to the boarding house immediately, warn Zach that there was another vampire in town, he didn't. Elena was still there, calm but it was her brother bleeding out and she had already seen her parents die. Stefan needed to know that she would be alright.

" _There's two puncture wounds, about a quarter inch in diameter set two inches apart, the patient has a history of drug abuse"_ Vicki rattled off to the EMTs.

Elena took up the thread " _Marijuana mostly, but he had access to ambien and vicodin, I don't know if he's on them right now or how they'll react to anything you put him on."_

" _You're family?"_

" _His sister,"_ Elena said and followed them into the ambulance but not before tossing her car keys to Vicki, " _Text me when you get home."_

" _I'll stop by in the morning, I want to see his reports."_

As the ambulance packed up and left, Stefan did as well, struck by the strangeness in the scene, although he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something about the entire exchange was off and he just couldn't figure out what.

His return to the boarding house was problematic to say the least and it distracted him for a while. Finding out that Damon was in town, that he was the one who had fucked with Elena's brother like that, fed on him and then left him alive wasn't fun. He'd done it to prove a point, that he could to her in ways that Stefan couldn't.

And it was then that Stefan realised what was so weird about it all. Because Elena was worried that her brother was bleeding from an apparent animal attack, sure, but Damon hadn't really _gotten_ to her. She wasn't really disturbed by it or anything. In fact, she was more disturbed by her brother stalking Vicki than by a possibly fatal attack on him.

And that struck him as being very odd.

Something strange was going on.

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	4. Chapter 4

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Elena stood at the side watching her 'little brother' as he lay there unconscious. While Jenna went around talking to all the doctors and sorting out the insurance issues, Elena was assigned watch duty and she did so but it was terribly boring and gave her far too much time to think.

If she was honest, she didn't really care that Jeremy was the one to be bitten instead of Vicki. But she was annoyed at the fact that Damon had struck so close to her. He was supposed to play cat and mouse with her, not yell at her to come out and play. There was no subtlety here, no teasing which was strange. Damon had been all about the game in the tv show. It was probably why he failed so often honestly.

But then, he played with Elena and Stefan because of Katherine. Because Katherine had wanted Stefan more, because Elena looked like her, everything was about that woman. In a way it was good, he wasn't fixated on Elena but on the other hand that made her the same as any other person in Mystic Falls. Disposable.

What was better then? Being the focus of such an obsessive character who was stuck in a cycle of abuse or being a relatively nameless person? After all, the nameless people in WVD tended to...die.

But so did the named ones, it's just that they didn't stay particularly dead. Realistically speaking going the way of Jenna was probably best.

And as if summoned by the ghost of Elena's thoughts Jenna appeared at her side, a plastic cup of shitty hospital coffee in her hand.

"How's he doing?" She asked gently, standing as close to Elena as she could, her free arm winding around Elena.

She was a good aunt, the kind that Elena would have liked to have in W1. In W1 her only aunt had been a trophy wife type of woman whose monthly expenses gave Elena a heart attack.

"There's been no change really. Nurse said that his vitals had stabilised but I don't really know what that means for him."

"He'll be fine," Jenna said as if trying to convince herself and took a deep shaky breath. "I think I saw your friend, Vicki in the cafeteria."

"Yeah, she was worried about me," As the only person who had some inkling of what the future would bring in this vampire infested world, Vicki knew she had to keep Elena around. "I think she feels a bit guilty you know, that it's her fault Jeremy wandered off into the woods," Elena lied.

"No, no, it's not her fault. Mystic Falls gets these animal attacks every so often, your Dad used to tell me about them, always made these crappy dad jokes about them being vampire attacks, you know?"

"Dads have the suckiest jokes. Get it, _suckiest_ jokes. Because vampires." Jenna snorted and pushed Elena gently out of the room.

"Great, sucky jokes run in the family, huh?"

"You could say it's in my... _blood_."

"Get out of here, go see your friends, go home and take a shower and get me a Starbucks, _please_." Jenna said and Elena took the opportunity.

"Hey, can I take his blood report with me? I just...wanted to see if maybe google can help me understand."

"That's fine, go, I'll hold up the fort."

Elena all but ran her way down to the cafeteria with the file in hand, throwing it down on the table where Vicki sat.

"You wanted to see the toxicology report?"

Vicki put the book she was reading down and picked up the report instead, pushing her glasses up her nose. "The way he was losing blood it seemed like there was some anti-coagulant stuff going on. Animal venom tends to have anti-coagulating properties, given that vampires feed on blood I was wondering if their bite injected their victims with similar compounds." She scanned the report that made Elena's head hurt quickly, nodding and making agreeable little noises at certain points. "Yep, it seems vampires inject anti-coagulants into people to keep the blood flow going. I'd love to see how they do it, what's the physiology and delivery mechanism?"

Elena sighed, "I don't actually know. When it comes down to it, I mainly know about the events that happen and the characters, nothing more really. And events have already started to change. So my knowledge seems to basically amount to fuckall."

Vicki leaned back in her chair, hands crossed over one another, clearly thinking. "We need facts. Anything useful in Elena's diaries?"

"Oh, she knew nothing about vampires and the rest, her parents kept it from the entire lot really."

Vicki frowned,"I thought you said it was a big deal being a Gilbert and all that."

"It is but they don't know that yet, they just think the hype is about being a Founder family. One of their ancestors was this inventor and he created a lot of stuff that was really useful for vampire hunting but it's a bit of a secret. In WVD they only really find out about it after they find out about Stefan and the other vampires and Bonnie gets her magic and the ancestor's journal which all happens much later and-" Elena brightened. "Actually, the original vampire hunting Gilbert's journal is somewhere in the house, I think. _He_ would have the facts that we need and his inventions might give us some ideas. And maybe Elena's dad has some journals lying around? Because I vaguely remember something about him running experiments on vampires and stuff...maybe in college or something? Not exactly sure."

"You know a lot about Vampire Diaries but your information is relatively unspecific."

Elena was pretty she'd read about what Vicki was doing. Making an observation of something the patient had already revealed to nudge them into elaborating.

"Are you using psychotherapy methods on me?"

Vicki shrugged, "I'm very bored and mentally speaking you're the most interesting person around. You've adapted very quickly to this world and created a sort of hybrid identity between Matilda and Elena. No true dissociation at all. I'd like to study you further."

A large part of her was stunned by what she was hearing but she was flattered too. "Wouldn't it be better to look for any other survivors from the bus accident and do a comparative study?"

"I put up an ad in Craigslist but no one has responded yet." Vicki leaned forward, excited about what she was saying. "I'd really like someone who was in the bus accident and woke up as a vampire or a werewolf, or a witch even."

"But you know, someone is inevitably going to be turned into a vampire or something here, sooner or later. The dysphoria would be pretty much the same for them too though. It's a big adjustment to make even if it was your own self and you could study them."

"Maybe, maybe not. Do you think the Gilbert ancestor's journal would have the answers?"

"It's possible. When they 'read' the journal in the tv show it focussed on the relevant material so who really knows what's in it?"

"There's only one way to find out."

* * *

"This journal," Vicki said as Elena walked back into her room, face still wet and hair in a towel. Elena had ransacked her 'parents' room and closet and finally found the journal, tossing it to Vicki to read while she took a lukewarm shower. While she loved the pretty pale blue hair with its soft purple highlights throughout, it was a pain to maintain. "Is a pain in the ass to read. It's an actual _journal_."

"He wrote about his feelings a lot?"

"Yes, the man was really in touch with his emotions but also really sanctimonious."

"He was a religious man living in religious times with creatures that affirmed his religious beliefs, I'm not really surprised. Nothing useful?"

"Bits and pieces. He had these inventions though, those I'm interested in." Vicki put the book down, her nose scrunching up, "So vervain keeps people from being compelled and is poisonous to vampires right?"

"Yes, in WVD Stefan gives Elena this locket with dried vervain in it to 'protect' her. You can also ingest it but it gets metabolised and runs out of the system pretty quick which is a bit of a problem. Having it in your bloodstream means that any vampire who decides to snack on you would get poisoned though, so that's an advantage."

"And staking works?"

"Through the heart with wood, yes. I think generally setting them on fire or taking the heart and/or brain out also works. And Original vampires are only vulnerable to old white oak-"

"I read that in the journal, does that weakness extend to Vampires?"

"I don't really know, at the end of the day it still took _staking_ them with white oak daggers for it to work, it's not a proximity thing like with the vervain so really it's just wooden stakes again." Suddenly Elena remembered something, "Was there anything in the journal about developing a resistance to compulsion because there was something like that I think, willpower and shit."

"There was but it was essentially training up against compulsions and Jonathan Gilbert just sat around marvelling at the ability of some people who managed to do so, nothing concrete."

"That's a pity."

"Oh, I don't know. Memory palace techniques might be what they're using. If something's 'out of place' in an organised mind it would easier to recognise."

"It's worth a shot, I don't think many people managed to build up an immunity to them anyway and the explanations were pretty flimsy too." Elena scoffed.

Vicki watched her with a curious look that unsettled Elena, "Why do you even know anything about all of this?"

"What do you mean? I've...watched the show." It was why anyone would know about all of this. Especially because the books were very different from it.

"Yes, but _why_? You don't seem to like the characters much, you've complained about the world building often enough but you still know several seasons worth of stuff about it. And it's not a guilty pleasure sort of thing either, you would know more if that was the case."

"Ohh, that. I get anxiety when I have exams or project deadlines and usually keeping something on in the background that I'm only vaguely interested in helps me focus and destress. If I was watching Modern Family or One-Punch Man or something, I'd be way too interested in it and never get any work done."

" _That_ explains a lot."

"Great, now tell me how to build a memory palace."

* * *

The time was right, his crow was outside Elena's window and Damon took the chance and entered her mind as she slept. He had heard Stefan talking to their 'uncle' about his problems getting Elena to really open up to him, take an interest in him. His brother didn't quite understand the idea of luring people.

He hadn't even had to try to get Katherine to slobber over him while Damon...he tried so _hard_. And when it came down to it Damon was the one fighting for her freedom, the one who still stood by, faithful to the end. So it would be him that she chose in the end.

But this wasn't about Katherine, no, no it was about Elena, lovely Miss Gilbert, so young, so beautiful, with her almost identical likeness of Katherine. He had so many plans for her, plans that required her to be besotted with Stefan. It was only right.

So when he entered the dreamscape, the face he wore was his brother's. A steamy little session with him would put the seeds of interest there, just like Damon wanted.

But her dreamscape was...odd to say the least.

It was an office floor. Damon found himself in a corner, at the water cooler. It wasn't loud or anything but there was an undercurrent of noise. People speaking softly to one another through cubicle walls. Phones ringing and soft spoken receptionist taking down notes and messages. Keys clicking and whirring of computers and laptops and printers.

Damon walked the floor, a bit worried. He had expected to find himself in her room, or in school. Even Hogwarts made more sense than this. Finally he found an office with a piece of paper with Elena Gilbert on it plastered on the name plate outside. It seemed to have another name underneath but just as Damon went to pull the paper off to see, a ringing sound went off, startling him. Damon's eyes went to the clock in the corner and it read 5.00 pm.

The door opened and Elena came out of the room. Her hair was the same pale blue but pulled into a tight ponytail with a red ribbon tied into a bow on it. She barely glanced at him before moving out, as did everyone else and Damon was swept away with the lot. Giggles and gossip abounded and people moved into their little cliques and Damon tried to follow the bobbing blue ponytail but it was surprisingly hard. The crowd was large, larger than it should have been and it seemed to grow even larger. Luckily the exit seemed to be getting closer and after a lot of elbowing Damon found her.

She flicked a glance his way when the person he had elbowed yelped but gave no other reaction. The horde slowly moved down the staircase and out of the building. There was a bus waiting outside and as Elena stepped into it, so did Damon. She sat down two seats behind the driver on the aisle said and he politely stepped past her, sheepishly ruffling his hair as he knew 'Stefan' would, and slid into the window seat. The bus filled up and soon took off. Damon looked out the window for a brief second before turning back to Elena only...she wasn't Elena anymore.

A completely different woman sat in her place, with pale coffee coloured hair and blue eyes, shorter and curvier too. But she wore the same hair ribbon tied into a bow on her head, the same pinstripe pencil skirt and black shirt Elena was. As Damon turned his head around to see if Elena had gone somewhere else in the bus he saw the entire thing was empty save for a woman a few seats back with a tight black braid, glasses and what looked to be a sleeker version of those mp3 player Damon saw all the time. Even the driver was gone but the bus kept moving. The rickety bridge it was on collapsed, however and the bus plunged into water. Damon stood, panicking although he didn't know why. It was just a dream right? Just a dream.

But it felt so real and..he couldn't control it. The water rushed in through the gaps in between the door and the cracks in the glass but the two women just sat there, calm and patient, even as their ankles got drenched.

Damon stood, and his heart beating fast he got out of his seat and made his way to the doors. He tugged but they wouldn't give way even under his vampiric strength and when he turned it look back the two women just stared at him, perfect poker faces in place.

"We need to get out of here!" Damon yelled but the two were unfazed.

 _"It's not our stop yet."_ They said in creepy unison and he flinched. The water was rising and it felt odd, mucky and heavy like mud but with a flow so fast he felt like he was being pushed by it.

Damon felt weak. That didn't happen to him often.

"It's _my_ stop here!" He yelled, slamming his fist against the doors incessantly and the two giggled.

"There's a button on the side to open them, you know." The woman with the bow who had been Elena said and Damon looked to see a bright red button right next to the door's hinges. It was so obvious, how had he not noticed it before?

With one last look back the the two who would be flooded with him, he pressed the button. The doors opened and Damon screamed as the heavy water pulled him out of the bus with a force so great, he felt his ribs give way under it. It filled his lungs and he flailed, trying to swim, to float, anything. The doors of the bus shut close and as he drowned he saw that no water had entered the bus when he'd opened the door. The two women turned in perfect unison to look at him and waved goodbye before jerking their heads to the front.

And the bus...the bus took off again, like a submarine underwater and soon Damon was all alone in murky depths.

He kicked and pushed, but nothing happened. The water dragged him down, down, down and as his lungs filled with it, his eyes closed.

And with a gasping breath he woke in his bed, sweat turning his skin so wet he thought he was wading in the water again.

The sound of footsteps snapped him out of it and he found Stefan looking at him, worried.

"Damon? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," the sound of his voice reassured him, the feel of the wooden floor giving way under the strength of his fingertips grounding him. "I'm fine, just...just a nightmare."

.

.


	5. Chapter 5

**.**

 **.**

Things seemed to go a lot faster when living in WVD than watching it. Jeremy was fine now, if a bit weak, walking and talking again, probably healed by the guilty Stefan, the comet had come and gone, Elena missing all the fanfare because sleep was a lovely thing and she didn't give enough of a fuck to stay up just to see it and next week would be the Founder's party ball thing.

Yes, everything moved a lot faster when not watching it.

Then again, things were different than they were in the tv series, mostly because Stefan's tortured mystique held no actual appeal to Elena, nor did any of the teen drama. For the most part Elena was getting very good at tuning people out. Caroline's insecurities rearing up again? Monty Python started playing in her head. Stefan desperately chasing after her? She solved the calculus worksheets they'd been assigned. Some terribly dull cheerleader passed comments on Elena's 'goth' phase? Well, alright, _that_ she dealt with by making the girl cry by reminding her of her mediocrity.

Bonnie was just about the only one she could stand and even that faded in comparison to the fondness she felt for Vicki.

Who was to be leaving them soon, alas. Her scholarship had been approved and she was soon to be studying at Whitmore college.

"What are you going to do without me?" Vicki asked, fingers steepled as she sat in the chair looking at Elena.

"Probably die." Elena answered, flippant. "At least in the summer I had some freedom but high school is a grating experience. Jenna won't let me skip grades because she wants me to grow up _normal_ and I don't quite have the patience for that."

"You refer to death easily, why is that?"

That was true, Elena dropped gallows humour and references to dying much more now than she did in W1. There were many reasons for that fo course, the main one being that dying once had landed her in a fictional world and not the one she preferred. Maybe dying as Elena in WVD would lead to her being resurrected as Wonder Woman in the DCU, who knew.

And more to the point, "There are worse fates than death, especially in this world. Those of the supernatural inclination go to this ghost world type of purgatory when they die and stay there for forever. I'm more afraid of being turned and having to either live forever or die and be trapped in that world than I am of dying. Although a doppelganger is a magical thing anyway so perhaps I'd end up there even if I die as a human." Elena shuddered at the thought of it.

"I still don't understand what a doppelganger is and why they repeat."

"Did I not explain that?" Vicki shook her head in the negative and Elena explained, "It all happened because of the usual appendage that wrecks the world, the penis. This guy from ancient times, Silas, wanted to dip his stick in this woman, Amara, forever, despite already getting some from his fiancee Questiyah. He got Questiyah to create this immortality spell, telling her it was for the two of them while it was really for him and Amara. Amara and Silas did the deed and were immortal which went against the rules of nature and et voila we have doppelgangers. Even that purgatory place is that penis' fault, his fiancee discovered them, got pissed, originated the idea that hell hath no fury like woman scorned and created that place as a torture dungeon for Amara and tried to coerce the penis to return to her instead. Spoiler alert, it did not work."

"This is exactly why I never did couples counselling." Vicki pulled a face before tossing something to Elena. "My going away present."

Elena opened the box and frowned in confusion. "Is that an insulin pump?"

"Yes."

"Well...thanks, but I don't really have diabetes?"

Vicki rolled her eyes. "I modified it, it's a vervain pump now."

"You're joking!"

"Steady and constant stream of vervain injected subcutaneously so it's not broken down too fast, but I'd suggesting keeping some dried on your person anyway."

"How are you so perfect?"

"I died in one world and then fell into the body of a much more conventionally attractive person but with all my processing skills intact."Elena blew a kiss her way before trying to figure out how to put the insulin pump on. "So, when are you going to kill Stefan and Damon?"

Of course Vicki had guessed at her next hopeful plan of action. She was so smart!

"Not quite sure. It kind of makes sense to keep them around and alive to use as a human sh-well, vampire shields for when my face invites more danger. But Stefan is also a doppelganger and Damon is a loose cannon so I'd really like to be rid of them. Pretty sure Katherine keeps an eye on them and that's how she found out about Elena being a doppelganger, though I can't be sure. Don't quite know what to do and I keep wondering, how am I going to hide it so that none of their special vampire friends don't find out and try to take revenge?"

"Kill them and then take off on a road trip?"

"Katherine and I still have the same face even if the packaging is different and that woman _really_ got around. Like five hundred years worth of Vicki getting around and pissing people off and fucking them, if someone sees me and thinks its her it's still a problem. Otherwise I would have convinced you to be the Sam to my Dean and run off with me hunting yellow eyed demons a long time ago."

"Is that another pop culture reference I won't get?"

Elena put down the vervain pump to look at Vicki in astonishment, "You cannot be serious?!"

"I miss the old days when the pop culture references I had to listen to were Cheers and Frasier and Friends." Vicki sighed. "Can't you run them out of town at least?"

"How would I go abo-" An idea came to Elena like a freight train through a tunnel. "I think I might actually be able to do that!"

* * *

There was a voice in Damon's head that only ever spoke to him when he was scared. It came into existence when he was held and tortured by the Augustine society. It kept him a bit sane, took his mind off the torture, off the pain and fear. It sounded like Stefan in one of his Ripper phases, drawling with sarcasm and with that smirk in it that always seemed to die when he turned 'vegetarian'.

And the voice said, 'You are a strong, independent vampire and you don't need anyone.'

Stefan had said that once after one of his binges. Back when he had been the only thing Damon had left of humanity and he wanted to hold on to his little brother for as long as he could. A long, long time ago.

Elena sang softly under her breath as she walked up the driveway blue hair swishing side to side as she swayed.

" _He said 'Now hush love, here's your gown. There's the bed, lantern's down', But I don't want to go to sleep, in all my dreams, I drown"_

And Damon felt like he was trapped in her dream again, drowning. The tumbler of scotch in his hand sloshed around, jostled by his trembling.

And the voice said, 'You are a strong, independent vampire and you don't need anyone.'

She giggled, a demented sound when compared to his own heavy breaths and kept on singing." _His berth, it rocks, heave ho, heave ho, the ocean gnashed and moaned. Like Jonah, we'll be swallowed whole and spat back teeth and bones."_

And the voice said, 'You are a strong, independent vampire and you don't need anyone.'

He all but ran down the stairs in his rush to open the door if only to get her to stop singing that wretched song.

"You must be Elena," He said and she _finally_ stopped singing only to smile eerily.

"Elena is only the name I was given," She said in a floaty voice that threw Damon off, "Please, call me Rainbow Sparkles. I chose it to represent the new me that I became after achieving inner peace."

What?

"What?"

She snorted. "I'm fucking with you, you Salvatore boys are so easy." Elena walked past him into the house, "So where's Stefan?"

"I'm sure he'll be along shortly. Did he know you were coming by?" Damon asked, trying hard to be his usual self, charming and seductive. Her eyes flitted over him and he felt like he was in her dream again, one of many in a crowd, not a real person at all. He fought to smile but his hands felt sweaty and wet.

"No, I just figured that considering that he's a self professed loner he'd be loning away at his home." Hearing the disdain for Stefan from a mouth so like Katherine's was just a bit vidictifying for him. But then she turned that same disdain towards him and asked, "Who're you anyway?"

"I'm Damon. Stefan's older brother."

She laughed dismissively. "I guess your parents must have read that half-baked novel Johnathan Gilbert was writing."

And Damon's ears pricked up. "Johnathan Gilbert?"

"Some ancestor of mine. Apparently he fancied himself a fantasy novelist. Wrote this piece of crap like a journal from an alternate universe of vampires and witches. Like the Tristram Shandy books, only bad and with creatures of the night."

"And you think our parents read it?"

"Named you after some of the characters didn't they?"

"Interesting," Damon made sure to keep his voice bland even as his heart sped up. "What was this other Damon like then?"

"Typical southern repressed boy, easily led around by the local town slut slash vampire. Johnathan set it in his time, everyone was either a polite southern boy or an abusive alcoholic."

"Local town slut slash vampire, you say?" Damon wanted to rip her throat out for daring to speak about Katherine like that.

"Yep, apparently she slept with a lot of people. I mean, all kudos to her, she wanted dick and she got dick. And she got the perks they offered her too. In a way she might actually be my favourite character in that villainous sort of way."

"Why is that?"

"Well, in the novel, she's on the run from someone and decides to settle into Mystic Falls. Then she fucks around with these brothers—your and Stefan's namesakes actually— and ends up outing vampires to the town. Then when the town people decide to sort of trap the vampires to kill them in a fire, she seduces one of the higher ups too and basically fakes her death in the fire before fucking off into the world."

And Damon feels his life crashing down upon him.

"Are you serious?"

"Hmm?" She said flippantly, not even looking up from the book she had picked up from the end table in the living room. "Oh yeah, it was very melodramatic. But I kind of appreciated that he didn't shy away from portraying a woman as an abuser, you know? A lot of these kind of novels deify women as a holy maiden type of figure but here's Katherine just shacking up with a bajillion dudes to get what she wants and to survive. But Johnathan also kind of shied away from calling Katherine what she was, I mean she compelled people to be okay with her bloody thirsty ways and sleep with her, that's clearly rape."

"No, what you said about her running off-"

"Oh _that_ , in the book there's some other supernatural creature too who's hiding away as part of this council thingy,, you know? And she made a deal with him to let her out of the tomb or something like that, in exchange for her silence and some magical artifact she had. I don't know, it was kind of annoying after a while. Very 'My kingdom for a vagina' type of thing."

"What was she running away from?"

"Some crap about the Original vampires or something-"

" _Fuck_ " Damon cursed under his breath. He had heard about the Originals but thought they were a myth. But now he thought about all those times Katherine had seemed terrified and he understood. Of course she ran away and of course she couldn't have taken Damon with her, he was just a newly turned vampire back then, more a hindrance than anything and he would have slowed her down and the Originals would have caught up to them. Katherine wouldn't risk him like that, not when it was obviously safer for him to be on his own.

She was trying to save him by leaving, he could see that now.

But he was better now. Stronger, more powerful than he had ever imagined he would be. Now he could finally be the partner Katherine deserved.

He just needed to find her.

Damon looked Elena, still rambling on. He saw the resemblance she bore to Katherine. Katherine must have had a life before them, one where she had a child. Damon had seen Pearl and Anna, he couldn't imagine Katherine wouldn't have turned her child the way Pearl had.

If he wanted to find her, he would have to find her child. Another time and he would have tracked that child going back from Elena but he knew that she was adopted. Grayson Gilbert had had a few too many talks with his wife about when it would be the right time to tell Elena to know otherwise. No, that wouldn't quite work.

But Katherine had spoken more than once of England, of meeting Pearl there, so that is where he would go.

A humming broke him out of his thoughts and he turned to see Elena pouting at her phone.

"Stefan said he should be here soo-"

"Elena!" Came a breathless whisper form his brother. He all but lit up at the sight of her and Damon was hard pressed not to roll his eyes at the lovesick behaviour. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr Tanner said to ask you for notes on what I missed this last week."

"Oh, yeah they're upstairs, would you like to-?"

"I'd rather not go up to a teenage boy's room alone, thanks."

"Right, but-" The angry but afraid look Stefan threw at him told Damon what he was worried about and he rolled his eyes.

"No need to worry about me corrupting the youth of today, brother dear." Damon grinned deliberately, knowing it would thrown Stefan off, scare him even more. "I've got some packing of my own to do."

"Oh, you going somewhere?" Elena said and Damon gave her a proper smile.

"Got an ex-girlfriend to woo."

Stefan startled, "You reall-"

"Maybe you guys should have the family discussion without strangers around." Elena interrupted his brother. "And I'd like those notes, please."

Stefan stared soulfully at ehr for a few seconds before ducking his head bashfully and agreeing, making sure to pull Damon along with him.

"What's this about going to England?" He asked Damon while picking books out of his bag.

"I've got a lead on an old friend of mine." Damon didn't want Stefan to interfere and fuck things up for him, any mention of Katherine always got him the judge-y look. His little brother opened his mouth to speak again but Damon clucked at him to get him to stop. "Now, now, wouldn't want to keep your girlfriend waiting."

Stefan all but growled, poking his finger at Damon threateningly, "This isn't over." He said and made his way down to Elena. Damon shook his head and turned to look out the window. He could hear Stefan's attempts at conversations being shot down repeatedly as Elena turned all his date ideas into Mystic Falls tour sessions or group outings. Before long she was out the door and sitting in her car, doing up her seatbelt. She waved at the door where Stefan was probably stood, waiting for her to get out of Damon's sight. The engine roared into existence and as she pulled out of the driveway he heard her chuckle.

"Men are so easy." She said with laughter in her voice and Damon shook his head even as he agreed.

The way she'd handled Stefan really did make him seem that way.

 **.**

 **.**


End file.
